> reporter: teens travel with doctors and other volunteers to countries near and far like honduras, india, kenya and vietnam. grace joined them on a mission to china. her job was to spend time with patients and their families and give them comfort before and after the operations. >> that was really, really interesting seeing such courage in such little kids. >> reporter: so what is the most enjoyable or rewarding thing about being an operation smile youth volunteer? >> well, the children wake up from their surgery and they are usually really disoriented and are really scared because they don't know anyone around them, and then we bring their parents in, and they see their kid for the first time, and they start to cry and it's really, really sad but it's an amazing experience because everyone's just so happy. >> reporter: operation smile was started by bill and kathy magee. they decided to get teens involved after their own daughter joined them on a mission. >> we said from now on there will always be high school students on our teams, we will always have university students. they are our